Review: NERVE

Title: NERVE
Author: Jeanne Ryan
Rating: 5/10
Date of Release: September 13th, 2012
Summary: A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly.

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling hot Ian. At first, it's exhilarating--Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly, they're all playing all or nothing  with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE? 

So. NERVE. Looked promising for a debut author, but the library took for-evah to let me have it. I got it, with the sizzling cover, and read it in two days. And? Meh.

The main character, Vee, is a high-school student who wants to get out of the shadows. We got the cliche blonde chick as her friend, who is in all the plays and always gets the guy. They've been best friends for a long time, and Vee wants her chance to, for once, be in a spotlight herself. So she signs up for NERVE. First of all, kind of stupid reason. I know it's hard to be off to the side while others get the glory, but it's been that way for many years, and one stupid thing with an idiot guy sets her off to risk her life? O...kay?

The dares themselves were very fun, and the premise had a ton of potential. It's like Truth or Dare, except on a big scale. The pacing throughout was very fast and kept the action moving, which I really appreciated. Anyone realized Forsaken has been in the 'to review' for a while? 'Cause it's slow as heck. Plotwise, this book is great, except for one part. The ending was a little confusing and unsatisfying to me. All of a sudden, Vee gets the nerve to do something crazy, while all along she's been whimpering and being dragged along by her hot boyfriend.

Oh yes. Forgot about the frikken boyfriend. If there is one thing I hate, hate, hate, hate in YA books, it's the hot, perfect love interest. Ian is freaking annoying. He's hot, chiseled, dark, brooding, has a nice car (of course). I may have mentioned here, here, and here that I hate the perfect boyfriend cliche. Some cliches are good, nerd, chosen one, etc, but this one is all bad, and so prevalent I want to throw up. Did it start with Twilight's popularity that everyone decided to make their love interests hot and perfect so girls would read? Great. Another thing Twilight has screwed up for the rest of us.

*cough* Um, back to the book. The other characters didn't wow me. They were...okay? Not great. Doable for the story line. It worked, it wasn't horrible, but I didn't like it. Plus, I know the author must have been setting up for another book, because of the ending *SPOILERS* were Vee gets a creepy note from the NERVE guy *END SPOILERS*. But there were still plot holes. For instance, what's Ian's story? He mentions his father a few times, and his rewards are always escape oriented. So why? Why does he want out? Where's his mom? Where does his nice car come from? We know nothing about him except that he's freaking hot and wants to leave his home. And that he has a perfect jawline and listens to Rolling Stones.

And Vee's story? Yes, we got some of it, but you get the feeling that it's supposed to be this 'big reveal' about halfway through the book, and it really wasn't. So, she had an accident and that's why her family's so protective of her? Alrighty then, on with the story. In other words:

Final Score: 5